


Loneliness Sticks to You Like Lint But It’s Okay Because I Have A Lint Roller

by CalicoCats



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Between mag 159 and 160, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:15:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21542866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CalicoCats/pseuds/CalicoCats
Summary: A week into their stay in Daisy’s safe house, Martin learns that Jon can knit.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 5
Kudos: 124





	Loneliness Sticks to You Like Lint But It’s Okay Because I Have A Lint Roller

One of the last things Martin expected to find when he got back from town with groceries was Jon knitting with a fervor. Jon looked like he hadn’t moved in hours, and the piece he was working on was already at least a foot long.

Martin must have had some of the Lonely clinging to him like lint, because Jon’s eyes stayed fixated on his knitting. All of Jon’s eyes, not just his original two.

Jon’s handiwork was methodical, and seeing his hands work was mesmerizing. Martin could have stood and watched it for how many more hours Jon sat there. As tempting as that was, Martin’s legs were beginning to get sore and Jon’s position looked uncomfortable, so Martin took off his accidental coat of loneliness.

At this, Jon looked up from his work.

The gaze of Beholding was an invasive presence, as were any of the fears entities. Martin knew that. But Jon seeing through it was... different. His gaze was still heavy, but in the way a weighted blanket was heavy. Comforting.

Martin was Seen, and it was nice to be reminded he was not on his own after the Lonely.

From what Jon had told him, Beholding liked to slip him small scraps of information varying from useful to irrelevant. If Martin had leaned farther in Beholding, would it have let him know Jon knit? Would that have been irrelevant?

Martin’s not sure he’d consider any detail about Jon irrelevant, but he may have had a bias.

As it was, Martin just said, “I didn’t know you could knit,”

“I haven’t done it in a while,” Jon replied and let go of one knitting needle to gesture towards himself, “I’d been... busy dealing with whatever wanted to murder me next, I suppose,” there’s a humorless laugh at that as he went back into the rhythm of knitting. Martin understood that, the disconnect from a hobby because of their line of work. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d sat down to write poetry since being locked in by Prentiss.

It may have been the threads tying him to the Eye, but Martin was still curious. “Any reason for picking it up now?”

Jon finished a row and set his work down, fidgeting with the finished material as he composed his answer, “Well, we’re supposed to be out here for who knows how long, with no service, and I don’t want to spend all days just reading statements. And I had... an idea. That I wanted to surprise you with.”

“Oh?” Martin sat next to Jon on the couch and fumbled through his next words, “it’s not— what kind of idea?”

“You mentioned that you felt cold, after the Lonely,” Jon said, having started to knit again, “and that touch could be overwhelming. And — and I know we haven’t really talked about it since, but I thought, if I knit you something, it might help you feel less cold?”

At Martin’s silence, Jon added, “It’s a scarf?”

“I— yeah. Yeah I think that would help,” Martin admitted after fully processing that Jon had probably spent hours knitting something for— for him. If anything would help against the Lonely’s lingering cold, Martin imagined it would be warm clothes made by a loved one. “Thank you, Jon,” 

Martin’s smile is genuine, and Jon mirrors it with a mildly shaky one of his own. 

Martin did end up watching Jon knit the rest of the scarf throughout the remainder of the week as they talked about nothing in particular. Jon filled in the silence with his voice or the clicking of the knitting needles, and Martin enjoyed the company.

The scarf was imperfect: some of the rows were uneven, and it showed that Jon was out of practice. Despite this, Martin wore it whenever he went out. It was soft, for one, and it reminded him that the Lonely had lost its grip on him. He was still cold, but it was a step in the right direction. An anchor to keep him from slipping into mist, next only to Jon himself.

If Jon found the bits of poetry waiting for him in the weeks after he finished the scarf he hadn’t mentioned it, but he hadn’t quite managed to hide his lingering smile, either.

**Author's Note:**

> I was knitting and was like, what if jon could knit, and wrote this in like an hour and a half. other people have had jon knit before but you can never have too much of jon knitting


End file.
